Rolling Stone
by Miscellaneous Musings
Summary: Short one-shot set after 1x12. Bellamy realises just how much he relies on Clarke as they try to lead their people to safety.


**_A/N: I do not own The 100 or the song Rolling Stone. All rights belong to The CW/Kass Morgan and Passenger respectively. With that said, thanks for reading and I hope you enjoy my random piece of fluff._**

_"__Sometimes I feel I'm going nowhere._

_Sometimes I'm sure I never will._

_She said it's cause I'm always moving._

_I never notice cause I never stand still."_

Bellamy's knees had gone numb from crouching in his post too long but he didn't dare move in fear of alerting any lurking Grounders nearby of his and the rest of the Hundred's presence.

It had been a week since Clarke and Finn had returned to camp, bloodied and beaten but with renewed determination in their eyes. He'd had mere seconds to bask in the relief of seeing his partner alive, to feel comfort in knowing that he wouldn't have to lead this rag tag bunch of delinquents on his own as the Grounder army approached, before his source of happiness had torn it apart.

She'd told him that the Grounders would attack at first light. He'd rallied the camp to stay- she'd fought to leave and now here they were five days later trekking off to some elusive beach. He wasn't surprised that her way had won out. He wasn't even annoyed. What he was was exhausted and terrified.

They may have escaped the Grounders by fleeing but he knew it was only a matter of time before they caught up. They'd already lost three of their people who were too slow, failing to keep up with the fast pace he and Clarke had set. It had torn him up inside that he couldn't go back for them, wait for them but that was the way it had to be if they wanted to survive, if they wanted to make it to neutral Grounder territory.

He spun around when he heard a branch break behind him, manically pointing his gun at the source of the noise only to find Clarke staring back at him, her hands held up in a silent display of defence.

"Relax, it's just me," she whispered, moving closer as he lowered his weapon and turned back around.

"It's kind of difficult to relax right now Princess."

She crouched down next to him and he could feel her worried gaze on his face. It irritated him. He didn't need her concern. What he needed was to find this bloody beach before the Grounders caught up and put their heads on spikes or whatever the hell they did with their kills.

"We shouldn't have stopped," he muttered.

"They needed a break Bellamy."

He spun his head to look at her angrily. "Yeah well so did Miles, Ann and Will but we didn't stop for them."

"You think I didn't want to?" She glared back at him.

"I honestly don't know what you want anymore," he grunted, turning back to eye the perimeter of where what was left of the Hundred were resting for a brief moment.

He heard her release a weary sigh. "I know you don't like my plan Bellamy but I honestly believe it's our best shot. You know we all would have died if we'd stayed back at the drop ship."

"We're all going to die now on the road to nowhere so what difference does it really make?" He replied, his eyes never wavering from the outskirts of their temporary camp.

"It's not the road to nowhere. I know where we're going…"

"Yeah to a supposed peaceful Grounder clan that another Grounder told you about. Sounds like a real safe plan."

"Lincoln saved my life," Clarke replied softly, her voice haunted and Bellamy tried hard not to think about what had happened to her to cause that tone. The guilt he felt over not going after her when she and Finn had first gone missing was already immense, he didn't want to know how bad it had been for her when she'd been held hostage.

"I just need you to trust me Bellamy," she continued. "Trust that I'm not going to lead us into danger and be there to back me up when I need you."

He turned to catch her eye and gave her a grim smile. "I always am aren't I?"

She smiled sadly back and her hand flickered as though she was going to reach for him but she reconsidered it at the last second, bringing it back down to rest awkwardly at her side.

"You should get some rest. I can take over for awhile."

"I'll get some rest once we reach the beach," he replied, trying to stamp down the disappointment he felt over her not touching him. He wasn't big on hugging or people touching him in general but in the rare moments that Clarke did reach out to him he felt comforted, warm and safe. He could use that right about now.

"You'll kill yourself if you keep going at this pace," she murmured worriedly.

He smirked over at her. "At least I'd die on my terms."

She said nothing, the statement obviously too morbid to warrant a reply and once again he turned to stare back into the dark night sky.

He thought she'd leave but Clarke never did what he expected. Instead she settled herself more comfortably next to him, her shoulders just barely grazing his, keeping him company as he tried to keep the wolf from their door.

_"__Sometimes I feel like I'm falling._

_Falling fast and falling free. _

_She says my darling you're not falling._

_Always looked like you were flying to me."_

He scrubbed desperately at his hands, trying to remove the blood staining every skerrick of his skin but it wouldn't come off. It didn't help that he was shaking violently.

"Bellamy."

He kept scrubbing, completely lost in his desperation to get clean. Too young, he was too young, was all he kept thinking.

"Bellamy."

He was a monster. He must have no heart or if he did it must be completely blackened by now.

"Bellamy, stop!"

And then suddenly she was there gripping onto his hands pulling them from the water and dragging his face to meet her worried gaze.

"You shouldn't be out here," she said softly.

No he should have been in the cave where the rest of his people had taken refuge after a group of Grounders had managed to catch up with them. They'd moved swiftly and without warning. It had happened so fast that Bellamy hadn't had time to prepare a proper defence, a lapse in leadership that had cost four of their fellow men and women their lives.

"I needed to clean the blood off of my hands," he replied, his voice completely void of any emotion.

Seeing his people die around him had flicked a switch in Bellamy and he'd lost all sense of humanity, attacking their enemy with brutal force. He took five of their group of 15 down himself before one of the Grounders had taken Jasper. He squeezed his eyes shut as he remembered what had happened next.

"You did what you had to do to keep us safe," Clarke whispered, seeing the horror and despair washing off of him in waves. "We all did. You weren't the only one to kill today."

"I was the only one to kill a boy Clarke."

He must have been only thirteen but his age had been disguised behind the heavy Grounder garb. It was only once the Hundred had gained the upper hand on their enemy and Bellamy had had a chance to take off the boy's mask that he'd registered what he'd done. He could still see those young lifeless eyes staring at him now and part of him knew that he probably always would.

"You saved Jasper," Clarke replied.

"I killed a boy."

Clarke grabbed his face gently in her hands and forced him to look at her.

"You saved Jasper," she repeated slowly, making sure her words sunk in.

They stayed like that for the longest time, her hands cupping his cheeks so that he wouldn't pull away. It was as if she sensed he was seconds away from losing it and this was her way of keeping him anchored. Whatever her motivations were though, it was working. He could feel his breathing returning to normal and his heart rate returning to its usual steady pace.

As the panic and desperation left him he found his vision clearing and he was able to really look at her for the first time since the attack. She had scratches all over her face; dried blood caked around the marks and the corner of her mouth where she'd obviously taken a hit.

Reaching up he gently cupped her cheek, her hand nearest to his falling away to give him better access as his thumb moved to try and wipe away the blood lingering on her pale skin. She always looked so innocent. It seemed wrong to have her marked like this.

Finally managing to remove it all, he looked up into her eyes that had been watching him intently the entire time. To any outsider it would have looked like a prelude to a kiss. The two of them sitting so close that Clarke was nearly in his lap, their hands stroking each other's cheeks tenderly. But in that moment he had no urge to kiss her. He didn't want to taint her anymore than she already had been since landing on Earth.

"I'm a monster," he repeated words he'd uttered to her not that long ago in a similar moment.

"If that's the way you want to look at it then we're all monsters," she replied. "I choose to look at it differently."

He quirked his eyebrow questioningly, "and how's that?"

"I choose to look at what you did, at what we all did, as a necessary means to an end. It didn't matter how old that kid was, he was still going to kill Jasper. It was either he died or Jasper died. You made the right choice."

She reached up and pulled his hand away from her face, inspecting it before pulling him back down to the stream and placing it under the water.

Gently she began scrubbing at it with her fingers, Bellamy watching in awe as the blood finally began to wash away from his hand under her touch. 

_"__But I fear I've grown a rolling stone inside of me._

_She said oh don't you know that rolling stones stop at the sea?_

_And that's where I'll be."_

It was when she flung herself over Octavia to prevent her from inadvertently stumbling into one of the Grounders' spear pits that Bellamy realised how far his feelings for Clarke had shifted.

They were two weeks into their journey now and they were all tired, beaten down and hungry. No one barely had the energy to put one foot in front of the other and yet there she was still looking out for everyone else, still putting the needs of everyone else before her own. It was a quality that had initially made him hostile towards her but now, well now he found himself feeling anything but hostile.

He couldn't exactly place what his feelings for her were or just how deep they ran but he knew they had grown way beyond platonic respect and admiration, beyond the general confines of their tentative co-leadership and that frightened him.

He found himself watching out for her more, making sure that she was safe and when he didn't know her whereabouts he felt a fear that previously only Octavia's absence had managed to instil in him.

It was dangerous to feel like this right now. One more person to worry about meant one more chink in his armour that could bring him down if placed in the hands of the wrong people.

But as he watched her move away from where the rest of the camp lay resting, going off as she did every night to take a rare moment for herself, he couldn't help but follow her.

He never intruded on her moments of solitude, instead just finding a place to sit not too far away where he could still keep an eye on her in case anything ever went wrong.

She knew he did it, that he was there on the outskirts looking out for her. She knew it and he knew it but neither of them said anything to the other. It was just an unspoken arrangement that they had but it seemed tonight she didn't want to play by the rules.

"Do you think I'm leading us down a dead end road?" She called out into the darkness but he knew the question was directed at him.

"Hard to say," he replied, moving out of the shadows and into the clearing to join her. "I didn't exactly ace Earth Skills Princess."

He sat down beside her and she turned to look at him, concern marking her beautiful but now slightly scarred face. "Finn is absolutely positive that we're getting close."

"Well he is our eternal optimist."

"But I'm not so sure," Clarke continued, ignoring the slight bitterness in Bellamy's tone when he referred to Finn. He couldn't help it, no matter how hard he tried he could never come around to Finn's way of thinking. Call him jaded but he didn't believe that a few kind words and carefully chosen promises would bring any kind of peace with the Grounders.

"It's been two weeks Bellamy and I don't see any signs that we're nearing the ocean."

"Well we can't go back," he said bluntly and he smirked at her when she rolled her eyes and gave him a look that screamed 'obviously'.

"Look as much as I hate to agree with Spacewalker on anything, in this case I think he's right." Bellamy ignored the smug smile that played across her lips at his words. "The Grounder attacks have gotten fewer and farther between as we've moved farther away. I think that means something."

He watched her consider his words and finally nod in agreement, throwing him a small smile. "I hadn't thought about it like that."

"Well that's why I'm here isn't it? To give you a fresh perspective."

"To speak for the commoners," she joked, her smile widening and Bellamy found himself grinning in return. It had been so long that the movement almost felt foreign to him.

They sat for a while just staring up at the stars. He knew she was probably looking up at the Ark thinking about all their loved ones who now lay dead inside its metal walls, left to float in space for all eternity.

"We should get back," she finally said.

"We should," he replied but instead of standing he laid down, placing his hands behind his head and closing his eyes.

He felt her eyes on him and knew she was unsure of what to do. She was probably biting her lip; she always did that when she was uncertain. After a few moments though he felt her move and cracked one of his eyes open to see her lying down next to him.

He snaked his arm out before she managed to fully reach the ground, moving it under her back and pulling her gently so she ended up lying on his chest.

She looked at him in surprise but he ignored her, simply closing his eyes again and moving his hand softly up and down her back to try and soothe her worries. She was always doing it for him. It seemed about time he returned the favour.

Eventually he felt her relax against him, even going so far as to trace small circles on his chest as she finally managed to rest for what had to have been the first time since they left on what he'd believed to be a suicide mission.

Yes it was the day she had protected Octavia that Bellamy realised his feelings for her had shifted but it wasn't until he held her in his arms that he realised exactly what to.

_"__Sometimes I'm sure I know no one,_

_A thousand faces but no names._

_She said my love you do know someone,_

_Oh and I know you back just the same."_

Bellamy stared at the girl who he knew he'd taken to bed once or twice back at their old camp. Her face was frozen in horror and disbelief as if even she couldn't believe that after everything they'd been through, it had been a giant mutated cat that had spelled her end.

Reaching forward, he brushed his hands over her eyes, gently pushing them closed. It was the least he could do.

"I didn't even know her name," Bellamy said to Clarke who stood just behind him watching as he tended to the dead girl. She'd sent the others away to prepare the cat that Miller had eventually killed for dinner.

"I screwed her but I didn't know her name."

Clarke was silent for a moment and he couldn't tell if it was because she was offended by what he'd said. She'd have no reason to be though and honestly, he didn't think she was the type of person to get hung up on such trivial matters.

"Harper," she finally uttered and he turned away from the dead girl to look at her in confusion.

"That was her name," she continued, nodding towards the body.

"Oh."

Clarke let out a heavy breath. "I'll start digging a grave."

He stood quickly so he could walk alongside her, nodding his head towards one of the Hundred still lingering nearby to watch over Harper's body.

"You know I don't really know anyone here," he said, picking up the shovel they'd made from the scrap from the drop ship on their first day as he and Clarke made their way to a secluded enough spot to bury Harper.

"That's not true," Clarke replied absently as she inspected the area. "You know Jasper, Monty, Finn, Raven, Miller, Ash, Tim, Monroe…"

"God, stop." He let out a dry laugh prompting her to look up at him questioningly. "You really would have listed off everyone in camp if I hadn't stopped you, wouldn't you?"

Her confusion turned to mild irritation. "What? You said you didn't know anyone. I was proving you wrong."

He picked up the shovel and started digging the grave. "Yeah I know their names, half of them anyway, but I don't actually know anyone aside from Octavia."

"You know me."

Bellamy paused in his digging to look at her. She had said it so plainly, so simply, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

"Do I?" he questioned.

"Yes," she replied assuredly. "Just like I know you."

He chucked the shovel on the ground and strode closer to her, his expression unyielding.

"And just what do you think you know about me?"

She didn't waver or cower under his intense gaze as most girls would have but then her strength and stubbornness were what attracted him to her.

"I know you're strong and rash and act before you think," she whispered, her eyes never leaving his. "I know that you put on a cold and hostile front to make everyone believe that you don't care but that you really care, probably more than half of the people in this camp do. I know that you're both selfish and selfless depending on the situation and those involved. I know that you think you're a monster when in reality you're a hero. A broken one," she smiled at him, "but a hero nonetheless."

She paused in her spiel and stared determinedly back at him. "How am I doing so far?"

He was speechless. Of all of the ways she could have reacted to that challenge that had been the last thing he had been expecting.

"I never knew you thought so highly of me Princess."

It had meant to be a joke to try and lighten the atmosphere between them that was suddenly thick with tension but it had come out as more of a husky whisper and he watched as her eyes darkened and darted down to his lips.

"To be fair, not everything I said was nice," she croaked as he moved even closer to her, his nose almost brushing against hers.

"Yeah I do recall something about me being selfish," he smirked down at her.

"Don't forget cold and hostile."

"Right of course," he muttered as his hand reached up to curve into her hair, pulling her up against him.

His lips had just barely grazed hers when Miller's voice broke through whatever spell had been cast over them.

"You guys dug the grave yet?" The boy cried, crashing through the bushes just as the two leaders pulled away from each other.

"Almost," Bellamy grunted and his second in command nodded, giving the pair a curious look before moving off again.

Clarke shifted awkwardly next to him, her eyes darting around to look at anything but him.

"I'll leave you to it then," she said, moving to follow Miller.

"Typical Princess, leaving the lower class to do all the work," he called out jokingly after her, trying like hell to break the awkward tension left from their almost kiss. It worked.

Turning back around she gave him a rare smile. It was something he wished she did more often. The way it lit up her entire face was truly beautiful.

"Who am I to get in the way of tradition?" She smirked. "Besides as you so eloquently put it back there, you did 'screw' her so I think you owe her one."

And just like that order was restored.

_"__But I'm scared I said, what if this stone don't slow down?_

_Oh just be aware she said, what goes up will come down,_

_And when you do I'll be around."_

They had grown too comfortable. The Grounders hadn't attacked in so long that they thought they'd won, that they'd finally out run them. They'd been wrong.

This time it had been a group of thirty and not one of them were children. These were all well trained warriors who probably had at least ten kill markings each so even though the Hundred outnumbered them 70 odd to 30, they still had the advantage.

Bellamy calculated that at least twenty of their people had been killed in the attack and that didn't include the dozen gravely injured. They had just barely managed to escape without it being a complete massacre, the fifty or so of them left managing to eventually gain the upper hand on the Grounder army with the help of modern technology and some smart thinking from their resident mechanic.

"Stop squirming," Clarke said, looking up at him in annoyance from where she was crouched at his waist inspecting his wound from where one of the Grounders' arrows had pierced him.

"I need to get to Octavia," he grunted as he tried to again shift away from where she had him propped up against a tree but she stood and shoved her hand firmly against his chest, keeping him in place with a strength he didn't know she had.

"You're no help to her with an arrow sticking out of your ribs. Just let me remove it and then you can go to her okay?"

His sister, his baby sister, had been struck in the side with a spear. He'd tried to reach out for her and pull her to safety before it had hit but he'd been too late. Just like always he thought bitterly. Despite reassuring her from birth that he would always look out for her, that he wouldn't let anything bad happen to her, something always did and more often than not it was due to mistakes that he'd made.

"She's going to be fine."

He looked down to find Clarke staring up at him, obviously seeing the fear in his eyes. "You don't know that."

Just then, Jasper came striding over to them prompting Clarke to break her gaze with him and turn her attention back to his wound. She gingerly started pulling at the arrow, testing it to see how easily it would come out and Bellamy bit his lip to stop a hiss of pain from coming out.

Looking for a distraction, he honed in on Jasper.

"How's Raven?"

Jasper shook his head sadly and Bellamy's shoulders sank. He heard Clarke suck in a deep breath and looked to find tears swimming in her eyes. He knew how she was feeling. Yes they'd lost many of their people over the past few weeks but this was the first one to hit them close to home.

"At least she took ten of the bastards down with her," he muttered, earning himself a glare from Clarke that screamed 'how could you be so cold hearted?'

"What? You know if she were here she'd be thinking the same thing. That's the kind of person she was. I don't see why we should paint her differently just because she's dead."

He saw Jasper quirk a sad smile in agreement and was turning to glance back down at Clarke when he felt burning white heat course through his side.

"Bloody hell!" He cried, desperately clutching the bark of the tree behind him, digging his nails in so hard that he drew blood. Finally managing to look down, he saw Clarke standing calmly before him holding the arrow that had been sticking out of him in her hand.

"It's better when you don't know it's coming," she said plainly, throwing the arrow onto the ground before moving forwards again and lifting up his shirt.

"Right, well I'm going to go and check on Octavia," Jasper muttered awkwardly, obviously eager to be gone before an inevitable argument broke out between the two leaders.

"Come and get me as soon as she wakes!" Bellamy called out after him and Jasper nodded as he disappeared back into the forest.

He settled back against the tree and watched as Clarke cleaned his wound and began stitching him back together again, his left hand coming up to rest on her shoulder as the needle pinched into his skin.

"We were complacent," he finally murmured and Clarke looked up from where she was placing the bandage over his stomach to meet his gaze. "We let them lull us into a false sense of security and now twenty of our people are dead."

"It was a mistake," Clarke agreed, rolling his shirt back over his stomach but letting her hands linger there.

"Yeah one we can't afford to make again." He removed his hand from her shoulder to run it shakily through his hair. "God Clarke, I almost lost Octavia today!"

He felt the panic overwhelm him, the responsibility of keeping the Hundred or the Fifty or whatever the hell they were now alive weighing so heavily on his shoulders that he thought he'd collapse. That was until he felt her hands press more firmly to his chest as she moved closer to him.

"But you didn't," she whispered soothingly.

He stared down at her intently. "I don't even know what the hell I'm doing anymore."

"You're doing what you need to survive," she replied. "We all are."

They stared at one another for a long moment, Bellamy at some point reaching up to weave a tendril of her hair through his fingers.

"If Octavia had died, I think I would have completely fallen apart," he admitted softly.

"No you wouldn't have."

He gave her a half hearted smile that he was sure came across more dark than he'd intended. "Because you wouldn't have let me, right?"

"Right," she smiled sadly in return.

The hand that was playing with her hair slowly moved to grab the back of her neck and he stroked the flesh there for a brief second before gently pulling her into him.

"Don't you ever get tired of keeping me together?" he murmured, his eyes tracing over every inch of her face as if trying to memorise everything about it.

"I don't know. Do you get tired of keeping me together?"

He gave her a rare genuine smile before closing the remaining distance between them and claiming her lips with his.

It had meant to be a tender, fleeting kiss, his way of thanking her for all she'd done, but that thought flew out the window the moment she started responding and soon their positions were reversed, Bellamy pressing her hard against the tree as his mouth devoured hers.

His hands roughly caressed her sides through her shirt as hers wound up into his hair, pulling him closer to her as their tongues battled for dominance.

Only the sound of a throat clearing managed to pull them from each other, both of them breathing heavily as they turned to find Jasper looking at them, his face bright red with embarrassment over stumbling across their intimate moment.

"What?" Bellamy gasped, his heart still racing.

"Octavia's awake," Jasper mumbled before spinning around and bolting as fast as he could away from them.

Bellamy turned back to Clarke but she smiled softly at him and told him to go, shooing him off with a flick of her hand.

He didn't need to be told twice, turning on his heel and hurriedly following in Jasper's footsteps to check on his sister.

They didn't talk about what had occurred between them. They didn't have time to. Three days later they hit ocean. 

_"__Oh when I've dragged this rolling stone across this land,_

_I'll make sure I'll leave this stone in her hand."_

Peace had come surprisingly easily. Lincoln had been right; the coastal tribe had welcomed them with open arms. Well, nearly with open arms. There were rules they had to follow and restrictions placed on their use of guns and mines until this group of Grounders managed to get their heads around them but with Finn taking on the role of negotiator for the Hundred, a treaty was quickly established and for the first time since landing in this hell hole, Bellamy felt safe.

Oh he still had worries of course, the most major one being Octavia's relationship with Lincoln. What he wouldn't give for his sister to have been attracted to Jasper, that would have made his life so much more easier, but he could see that the Grounder clearly loved her and that was something he supposed.

Walking along the beach, he savoured the feeling of the sand under his bare feet. He'd read about the ocean having therapeutic affects while still living back on the Ark but he hadn't believed it. He didn't see how a location could have any kind of calming influence but like many things, he'd been proven wrong yet again.

The salt air and the sound of the waves crashing into the beach soothed his tired and beaten soul. With every breath he took in he could feel his worries slowly ebb away.

It made sense then that it was here where he'd find her after having barely seen her at all since they'd arrived five days ago. In many ways, she had been his ocean up until this point, keeping him calm and chasing away all of his worries as they had fought through near impossible circumstances.

She was standing with her feet in the water letting the small waves crash around her ankles as she stared out into the endless sea, so lost in thought that she startled when he came to stand beside her.

"What are you doing?" He asked quietly as he followed her gaze out onto the horizon.

"Trying to cleanse myself," she said, flicking him a small smile.

He smirked back at her. "Is it working?"

"No idea but it sure feels nice."

He couldn't argue with her there.

"So it looks like you were right," he stated as he watched his feet sink slowly into the wet sand under the water.

"Oh of all the times not to have a tape recorder!" she cried in mock exasperation and he chuckled lightly.

Her face quickly grew serious again though as it always inevitably did. "It was still a risky gamble though."

"But that's you isn't it," he replied, smirking over at her. "Ever the brave Princess."

She smiled back at him, knowing now that there was no malice behind his words, quite the opposite in fact. "If I'm still a princess then what does that make you? A prince?"

"Pfft no. I'm way too ruggedly handsome to be a prince."

She let out a loud laugh causing Bellamy to grin at her. It had to have been the first time he'd heard her make that sound. He hoped he heard it again.

Reaching out, he grabbed a hold of her hand and intertwined her fingers with his. She looked down at where they were joined before slowly moving up to his eyes.

"I couldn't have done this without you," he admitted, all mirth now gone from his face as he stared back at her intently. "I hope you know that."

She turned so they were face on and waded through the water so she had to crane her neck up to catch his eye.

"Ditto," she whispered before lifting herself up onto her toes and kissing him gently.

Breaking away she smiled brightly at him and he felt himself smiling back before reaching forwards and pulling her back to him.

And in that moment, as his lips travelled over hers and the waves crashed at their feet, Bellamy felt content, as though he'd finally found his anchor in this godforsaken, terrifying new world. 

_"__For we both know too well that rolling stones turn in to sand,_

_If they don't find a place to stand."_


End file.
